Code blues.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Electronic privacy protection

Phil Zimmerman gave electronic privacy protection to the masses, and for that he may go to jail.

IN 1991 PHIL ZIMMERMAN DEVELoped a software program called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), designed to shield electronic information from prying eyes, and gave it away for free. Zimmerman, a Boulder, Colorado, software consultant, thereby provided unbreakable "military-grade" encryption to the masses. After he released PGP, someone put it on the Internet, making it available, with a few keystrokes, to the whole world. In a short time, PGP could be found in London or Moscow. This has upset some powerful people in Washington, especially the National Security Agency.

Agents from the U.S. Customs Service visited Zimmerman in February 1993 to ask him about the "export" of PGP. Under the current interpretation of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, cryptographic software like PGP is classified as "munitions" and cannot be legally exported without permission from the federal government. "The mere posting of encryption software is tantamount to exporting it," explains Danny Weitzner of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Zimmerman says he has been told that he is the primary target of an ongoing federal grand-jury investigation. In September, he says, an encryption company was served with a subpoena to produce documents related to "ViaCrypt |the commercial version of PGP~, PGP, Philip Zimmerman, and anyone or any entity acting on behalf of Philip Zimmerman for the time period June 1, 1991, to the present." Assistant U.S. Attorney William Keane, who is in charge of the grand-jury investigation, says he cannot comment on an on-going case, but there may be "some activity shortly."

If Zimmerman is convicted of "exporting munitions," he could go to jail for four years. He would probably view himself as a political prisoner. "I didn't do it to make money," he says. "I did it to inoculate the body politic." In October he told a congressional subcommittee: "When making public-policy decisions about new technologies for the government, I think one should ask oneself which technologies would best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do not allow the government to deploy those technologies. This is simply a matter of good civic hygiene."

Zimmerman believes the expansion of digital communications networks could pose a serious threat to individual liberty. He makes the point by contrasting how government agencies can monitor regular mail with how they...